Sheet metal piling



Aprll 7, 1959 A. B. WILSON ET AL 2,830,589

SHEET METAL FILING Filed Jan. 25, 1955 (Mm INVENTORS a BQAID'LP. Cob/[mm BY y? Uni -r S e Pat n SHEET METAL PILING Allen B. Wilson, Chicago, and Bestor P. Coleman, Willow Springs, Ill., assignors to Acme Steel Company, Chicago, 111., a corporation of Illinois Application January 25, 1955, Serial No. 483,864 6 Claims. (CI. 6160) This invention relates to improvements in sheet piling structures of the type used as walls or barriers for dirt, concrete, or the like including use as a breakwater.

In the construction of sheet pilings, it is customary to provide piling sections joined together at their side edges to form a continuous wall or piling and the connections of one section to another are ordinarily such that the sections can be connected either in a straight line or at right angles to each other. Many forms of piling sections have been considered, but apparently they have had various disadvantages. Some have required rolled or extruded connecting portions requiring heavy and expensive equipment to manufacture while others, though capable of being simply bent formed from sheet metal, have required multiple shapes or varieties of pieces to impart proper connector portions. It is the principal object of this invention to overcome these disadvantages by providing a sheet piling structure composed of identically shaped pile sections capable of being formed by a simple bending operation from fiat sheet metal pieces which can be connected at their side edges in a slidable telescoping interlocking manner in either a linear or right angle direction to each other without the use of additional special connector pieces.

There are other characteristics desirable in sheet piling structures, among which are a loose fit at the connections between adjacent piles to permit easy sliding movement of the separate piles relative to each other at the time of assembly and, at the same time, a tight relatively leakproof seal at the connections; which characteristics appear to be inconsistent unless a tightening operation is performed after assembly of the piles. Nevertheless, it is another object of the invention to provide an improved sheet piling composed of individual piles which can be easily slidably connected to each other and still provide relatively tight leakproof sealed joints therebetween without any additional tightening operation. In order to accomplish this, we provide resilient sheet metal piles having rectangular heads along their first edges and larger rectangular hooked shaped sockets along their second side edges so that the heads and sockets of adjacent piles can be telescopically connected with each other, and by having certain of the head and socket walls inclined at an angle rather than parallel to each other to impart limited contact and certain angular clearance between the walls, a relatively tight seal is insured at the connections and easy sliding is permitted during assembly as the resilient sheet metal socket and head walls flex slightly through the angular clearance when a binding condition arises due to irregularities of the piles or when foreign objects such as dirt particles are present.

It is still another object of this invention to impart rigidity and column strength to the piling sections and the piling by forming the sections into a V shape, this added rigidity and column strength facilitating the driving of the sections into the ground without buckling and the V shape also minimizing the number of pieces and, likewise, the number of corner connections required.

It is still another object to provide a piling section having a V-shaped web connecting its head and socket ends which can be telescoped with heads and sockets on adjacent piling sections in either of two angularly stable fixed positions, one position with portions of the webs at right angles to each other, the otherposition with portions of the webs extending parallel to each other.

, Other details, objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of a preferred embodiment shown in the accompanying drawings, in which Fig. 1 shows a top plan view of a single sheet pile; and

Fig. 2 shows a front elevation partially cutaway of the sheet pile of Fig. 1; and

Fig. 3 shows a perspective view of the top ends of a series of sheet piles connected to each other to form a wall or barrier, the lower ends of the piles being buried beneath the ground; and

Fig. 4 shows an enlarged view of the joint connection between two sheet piles positioned laterally of each other; and

Fig. 5 shows an enlarged view of the joint connection between two sheet piles positioned at right angles to each other.

As shown in Figs. 1 and 2 a preferred embodiment of an individual metal sheet pile 1 is characterized by a generally V shaped cross-section having two side webs 2 and 3 placed at an angle of approximately degrees relative to each other and joined between by a flat connecting web 4. The outer portion of the web 2 is provided with an enlarged somewhat rectangularly shaped hooked edge 5 composed of four side walls 6, 7, 8 and 9 consecutively joined to each other approximately at right angles. Wall 9 terminates at a distance short of the wall 6. Similarly, web 3 consists of a small rectangularly shaped hooked edge 10 having walls 11, 12, 13, and 14 consecutively connected at right angles to each other. The wall 14 terminates just short of alignment with wall 11. The purpose of having edge 10 smaller than edge 5 is to permit edges 10 and edges 5 on adjacent sheet pile members to be slidably telescoped with each other to form interlocking joints. These joints are particularly shown in Figs. 4 and 5. By having the wall 9 on edge 5 fall short of alignment with wall 6, it is possible to position the edges 10 and 5 in the positions as shown in Fig. 4 as well as that as shown in Fig. 5. By having the wall 14 as long as possible, greater contact between members 5 and 10 is permitted when they are positioned as shown in Fig. 5. Since it is desirable to have a minimum amount of frictional contact between the walls of the edges 5 and 10 in order to prevent binding and permit easy telescoping when the piles are driven, it is desirable to either provide clearance between all mating walls of the edges 5 and 10 or else angularly displace walls 7 and 8 of the edges 5 a slight amount to limit contact of the edges 10 with the edges 5 in corner regions formed at the intersections of walls 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and not at the corner formed by walls 7 and 8.

If clearance is provided between all mating or adjacent walls, easy telescoping of the piles is insured, but leakproofing is sacrificed. So, in order to obtain both advantages, angular displacement of the walls 7 and 8 relative to walls 12 and 13 as in Fig. 4 or relative to walls 13 and 14 as in Fig. 5 is necessary. This arrangement produces line contact at 21, 22, 23 and 24 and angular clearance 25 or 26 between the walls. Since the piles are made of sheet metal which is ordinarily resilient, the sides of the edges 5 and 10 are free to flex slightly through the angular clearance 25 or 26 when a binding condition arises while driving the piles, possibly due to irregularities in straightness or the sheet metal thickness of the Patented Apr. 7, 1959 aesaeee 3 piles. This flexing permits the hooked edges and to either expand or contract in size as necessary to alleviate the binding and at the same time maintain sealing contact between the walls.

The shapes of the edges 5 and 10, although described generally as rectangularly shaped hooks, are more accurately defined as quadrilaterally shaped hooks in the case when the walls are angularly displaced as just described.

As shown best in Figs. 4 and 5, hooked edges 5 and 10 which may be referred to as heads and hooks, respectively, have certain inherent dimensional characteristics as shown which permit two fixed positions of a head 10 within a hook 5, one of the positions being where the web 3 extends at a right angle to the web 2 and the other being where the webs 2 and 3 extend adjacent and parallel to each other to impart double web thickness and double strength at corner portions of the piling, as shown at 18 in Fig. 3. These inherent dimensional characteristics can be expressed with respect to the arrowed dimensions specified as A, B, C, D, and E. A is the length of wall or side 8 of the hook 5, B is the length of the wall or side 6 of the hook 5, C is the length of the wall or side 11 of the head 10, D is the thickness of the wall or side 9 of the hook 5 and E is the length of the wall or side 9.

In order to position the head 10 in the hook 5, as shown in Fig. 5, without overlapping interference between the webs 2 and 3, the length B of side 6 must be equal to or less than the difference between the length A of side 8 and the sum of the length C of side 11 and the thickness D of side 9. In order to position the head 10 in the hook 5, as shown in Fig. 4, without having the end of side 9 running into the web 3 the length E of side 9 must be less than the length C of side 11.

The manner in which the individual piles 1 are connected to form a Wall or barrier is shown in Fig. 3 and for linear placement of the piles relative to each other their ends are arranged as at 15, 16 and 17 to form joints similar to that shown in Fig. 4. To place the piles at right angles to each other, a joint as shown in Fig. 5 is used and this type of joint is indicated at 18. The upper ends of the piles are shown projecting above the ground 30 below which their lower ends are buried. It should be noted that when the piles 1 are placed linearly, their webs 2 and 3 are at right angles to each other, and when the piles 1 are positioned at right angles to each other, their webs 2 and 3 are positioned parallel to each other. This parallel positioning of the webs is extremely important in order to provide the extra strength of a double thickness web in the region of the corner at 18 where extra strength and rigidity is especially desirable.

The V shape construction of the individual piles imparts rigidity to them so that they may be conveniently driven into the earth or other material without fear of buckling or bending to result in misalignment and they also eliminate the need for a connecting joint at the vertex of the V as would be required if all straight pieces were used. In addition to this advantage, the connecting webs 4 provide flat surfaces which may be longitudinally aligned with each other to permit a brace or nailing strip to be joined to the completed wall structure by means of bolts 26 or other fastening means.

While a preferred embodiment of the invention has been shown, it should be understood that the invention is not limited thereto, but may embody other constructions without departing from the scope of the appended claims.

We claim:

1. A sheet piling comprising a plurality of pile sections, said sections being provided with larger sockets along their one edges and smaller heads along their opposite edges, said heads and sockets on adjacent pile sections being connected together with a head telescoped within a socket, and each head and socket having four side walls successively connected together to impart quadrilateral shapes to them, at least two side walls on each of said heads forming angles with at least two adjacent side walls on each of said sockets with which the heads are telescoped to provide line contact between said adjacent side walls in regions adjacent the vertices of the angles formed by said adjacent side walls, said heads and sockets having a sufiicient number of spaced regions of contact that they telescopically connect in fixed angular relationship.

2. The combination in claim 1 in which all of the walls on the heads and sockets are resilient to permit the walls to be deflected to yield to the irregular paths created by foreign objects and irregularities of said pile sections existing in the regions of contact between the heads and sockets when the heads and socket members are telescopically connected.

3. A head and socket connection for a sheet piling comprising a quadrilateral shaped four sided head telescopically enclosed in a larger quadrilateral shaped four sided hook, said head having three connected continuously together to form two corners of the head, whereby the first and third sides extend parallel and opposite to each other and are connected together by the second side in the form of a U-shape, one edge of the fourth side of the head being connected to the third side and extending parallel to and opposite the second side and of a length shorter than the second side, the other edge of the fourth side being connected to an edge of a first Web, the first side of the hook being disconnected along one edge to form the free end of the hook, the other edge of the first side being connected to the second side to form one corner of the hook, the first side of the hook being of a shorter length than the fourth side of said head, the second and third sides of the hook being connected to gether to form a second corner of the hook, the third side of said hook being connected to one edge of the fourth side to form a third corner of the hook, said fourth side being of a length equal to or less than the difference between the length of the second side of the hook and the sum of the length "of the fourth side of the head and the thickness of the first side of the hook, the other edge of the fourth side of the book being connected to a sec ond web.

4. A head and socket connection for a sheet piling comprising a quadrilateral shaped four sided head capable of being telescopically enclosed in either of two fixed angular positions in a larger quadrilateral shaped four sided hook, said head having a first web extending from one side and intermediate of the head, the first side of the hook being disconnected at one edge to form the free end of the hook, the other edge of the first side being connected to the second side, the second side being connected to the third side, and the third side being connected to one edge ofthe fourth side to form the first, second and third corners of the hook, respectively, the other edge of the fourth side being connected to a second web, the fourth side being of such a length that the head and book can be positioned in one of the two fixed angular positions with the first and second web extending from edges adjacent to each other without overlapping interference, the first side of said hook being of such a length that the head and hook can be positioned in its second fixed angular position with the first and second webs extending from edges at approximately right angles to each other without interference of the first side of the hook with the first Web.

5. A sheet piling section adapted for connection to another identical sheet piling section comprising a web connected along one edge to an intermediate region of a quadrilateral shaped four sided head and at its opposite edge to one edge of the fourth side of a larger quadrilateral shaped four sided hook, the other edge of the fourth side being connected to the third side of the hook and the third side being connected to its second side to form the third and second corners of the hook respectively, the second side being connected to one edge of the first side of the hook to form a first corner of the hook, the other edge of the first side being disconnected to form the free end of the hook, the fourth side of the hook being of such a length that the hook on one sheet piling section can be telescopically positioned on the head of another sheet piling section in one of two fixed angular positions with the portions of the webs connected to said hook and head extending from edges adjacent to each other without overlapping interference, the first side of said hook being of such a length that said head and hook can be positioned in a second fixed angular position with the said web portions extending from edges at approximately right angles to each other without interference of the first side of the hook with the web portion connected to said head.

6. A sheet piling section adapted for connection to another identical sheet piling section comprising a web connected along one edge to a quadrilateral shaped four sided head and along its other edge to a larger quadrilateral shaped four sided hook, said head having three sides connected continuously together to form two corners of the head, whereby the first and third sides extend parallel and opposite to each other and are connected together by the second side in the form of a U-shape, one

edge of the fourth side being connected to the third side and extending parallel to and opposite the second side and of a length shorter than the second side, the other edge ot the fourth side providing the connection between the head and said one side of said web, the first side of said hook being disconnected along one edge to form the free end of the hook, the other edge of the first side being connected to the second side to form one corner of the hook, the first side of the hook being of a shorter length than the fourth side of said head, the second and third sides of the hook being connected together to form a second corner of the hook, the third side of said hook being connected to one edge of its fourth side to form a third corner of the hook, said fourth side being of a length equal to or less than the difference between the length of the second side of the hook and the sum of the length of the fourth side of the head and the thickness of the first side of the hook, the other edge of the fourth side of the hook being connected to a second web.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,042,581 McFarlane Oct. 29, 1912 1,176,294 Hill Mar. 21, 1916 2,377,994 Cocken June 12, 1945 FOREIGN PATENTS 493,123 Belgium May 2, 1950 812,130 Germany Dec. 10, 1951 

